King Solomon ruled the small, but independent kingdom of Israel for nearly forty years, approximately one thousand years before the time of Jesus. In many ways, Solomon’s reign was enshrined in legend as the golden age of Israel’s monarchy. Solomon was one of the sons of King David, but not the crown prince and gained his throne through palace intrigue. His entire rule encompassed an unbroken respite of relative peace, unusual in that part of the world, and that peace brought prosperity and security.
Main trade routes went through the land, and the Mediterranean arms trade was very profitable. Horses from Asia Minor went to Egypt in exchange for chariots made in Egypt. Israel mined copper and iron, likely by using foreign slaves, and shipped all through the Mediterranean. Solomon owned a fleet of ships, operated by Phoenician sailors that carried the products of the mines and returned with ivory, gold and other luxury goods for the rich.
The court life at the palace was active and sophisticated. Solomon was reputed to have many foreign wives whose marriages were to satisfy and guarantee foreign trade and treaty agreements. The famous story of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon had much more to do with trade negotiations than with romance. Like all despots, there was a corps of publicists to continually enhance Solomon’s reputation for wisdom, for being the patron and magnanimous benefactor of the arts, and for his great feats of public works and kingdom building to impress the populace.
But underlying all the pomp and glitter, there always remained in the Biblical record openly negative undercurrents. The nation of Israel was formed by God freeing people who were slaves in Egypt and forming them into a nation of free people. Therefore, they were to take special care of the alien and oppressed because they had once been like that in Egypt. Now Solomon was importing slaves to work the mines and build his public monuments. Taxes increased to support Solomon’s ambitions and there developed a definite and widening gap between a small number of very affluent at the top and the majority of the population whose lot was not improved. Israel had been entrusted with a mission to be a light to the world, to be a people of blessing to all people and was specifically not to be like all the other kingdoms of the world. Now it was becoming just like another petty kingdom. While one of Solomon’s great building feats was the temple, it was known as Solomon’s temple, not God’s temple, and the royal palace was where important activity seemed to transpire. The nation was focused around Solomon’s exploits, not around God’s mission to the world.
The so-called golden age was fleeting. Shortly after Solomon’s death, the kingdom was divided in two. Great prophets arose who severely condemned the apostasy of the rule of kings, and within four centuries, the vestiges of the empire, the temple, palace, and all the public buildings of Jerusalem would be a pile of rubble and weeds.
After a hard day working in the fields, laborers may have passed by some of the ruins of Solomon’s era as they joined others to hear Jesus. It’s always been easy for legends of long ago glory and vestiges of magnificent monuments to obscure the cruelty and human suffering that caused their origin. In the popular imagination the reign of Solomon would always be a golden age.
Jesus, too, spoke of the golden age of Solomon, putting it into a different context. The power of God is like leaven in bread, like a tiny seed that endures against all odds and grows into a giant tree. Consider the flowers of the desert that pop up instantly and flourish after the first rain of spring. Not even Solomon in all his glory had the ability like one of these.
Jesus was teaching them that their ability to survive the storms of history, their resolve to keep hope alive, their endeavor to leave their children a legacy of integrity, had much more to do with the strength of their vision of God’s purpose for them to be a people of blessing, than all the gold and silver Solomon ever accumulated.
I’m told how much the world has changed, but as I read beneath the headlines, I’m not so sure. The world’s publicists and spin handlers are very much in business. We are supposed to be impressed with the increase of life’s speed; Jesus teaches us to seek life’s depth. We are told to strive to be prosperous at all cost; Jesus reminds us first to seek to be faithful to God’s mission. Solomon or God, the choice seems to go on forever.
